Beinecke acquires only known copy of lost O’Neill play

To its vast collection of Eugene O’Neill documents, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has added another treasure – “Exorcism,” a one-act play that has been missing for over 90 years, according to a Tuesday afternoon press release.

The play, which was inspired by O’Neill’s 1912 suicide attempt in a New York boarding house, debuted in 1920. The playwright cancelled the production after only a few performances and tried to destroy all known copies of the script, possibly out of concern for the emotional health of his parents.

But “Exorcism” would not be exorcised. O’Neill’s second wife, Agnes Boulton, preserved a copy of the script and gave it as a gift to the writer Philip Yordan. A researcher working in Yordan’s papers found the typescript together with the envelope in which it had been given to Yordan.